GEOLOGICAL CONTEMPORANEITY 67 



searching inquiry into palseontological principles and 

 methods, or as the author epigrammatically put it, an 

 attempt to answer the question, " Now, Messieurs les 

 Palaeontologues, what the devil do you really know?" 

 (Life, i, p. 204). Some of the sentences in Sir Charles 

 Lyell's expressed opinion of the address will best indicate 

 its scope and the manner of its reception (Lyell's Life 

 and Letters, ii, p. 356) : — 



" Huxley delivered a brilliant critical discourse on what 

 palaeontology has and has not done, and proved the value of 

 negative evidence, how^ much the progressive development system 

 has been pushed too far, . . . the persistency of many forms 

 high and low throughout time, how little we know of the 

 beginning of life upon the earth, how often events called contem- 

 poraneous in Geology are applied to things which, instead 

 of coinciding in time, may have happened ten millions of years 

 apart, etc. ... I never remember an address listened to 

 with such applause, though there were many private protests 

 against some of his bold opinions." 



Although the enormous strides made by the subject of 

 late years have necessitated a certain amount of modifica- 

 tion in the views advanced, as was of course only to be 

 expected, this address will always remain classical. 



The following contributions to palaeontology were 

 published during the year : — 



1. "On New Labyrinthodonts from the Edinburgh 

 Coal-field" (Q. J. Geol. Soc, xviii, 1862, pp. 291-6. 

 Read May 7, 1862. Sci. Mem., ii, xxx, p. 530). 



2. " On a Stalk-eyed Crustacean from the Carboni- 

 ferous Strata near Paisley (op. cit., xviii, 1862, pp. 420-2. 

 Read June 18, 1862. Sci. Mem., ii, xxxi, p. 536). 



3. "On the Premolar Teeth of Diprotodon, and on a 

 New Species of that Genus" (op. cit., xviii, 1862, pp. 

 422-7. Read June 18, 1862. Sci. Mem., ii, xxxii, p. 



539)- 



